Michael Sam’s coach singles out Dolphins situation as bad fit

Even though both Jonathan Martin and Richie Incognito came out in support of Michael Sam’s announcement that he was gay, Sam’s college coach isn’t sure Miami would be a good landing spot.

In an interview on ESPN Radio, Missouri coach Gary Pinkel singled out the Dolphins situation as one that could be a bad fit for last year’s SEC co-defensive player of the year.

“I think the incident that happened down in Miami with the Dolphins — I don’t know the people involved there, and I’m not really judging them, but when you have a locker room atmosphere like that, when people are verbally being destructive to each other and you call it fun, I think there’s a fine line there,” Pinkel said, via Andrew Abramson of the Palm Beach Post. “I’m not one of the Righteous Brothers here, but we talk to our team all the time about how locker rooms are great in sports, locker rooms are awesome. It’s a great thing about being a member of the team. Guys like to bust each other, go after each other verbally. But there’s a certain point when what you say is hurtful and it doesn’t help the team, it hurts the team.

“If you have that kind of environment where people say anything they want and say mean, awful berating things to people, it probably will not work very well. But if you have a team that respects one another — I may be naive, that’s what we try to do.”

Just as Sam’s football skills might not be a fit for every scheme, his personality might not work in every locker room.

Landing in a stable environment with strong leadership will help. But even though Martin and Incognito won’t be back in Miami, not much about the Dolphins’ last season or this offseason lends itself to the idea that stability and leadership exist there.

hmm… so we all know rookies get hazed someway in different degrees. Picking up veteran’s discards or some ribbing and practical jokes. Is this guy’s coming out status going to make him think he’s being single out in such instances because he’s gay vs just what any rookie goes through?

Most owners would take a comment like this as a wake-up call that their franchise is a total disaster and needs drastic changes to get on the right track. Not our owner, though. If he hasn’t gotten it by now, he never will.

I cannot think of a better way to address the image of a “bullying” lockerroom than to draft the first openly gay NFL player.
The Dolphins are in the process of cleaning out all the bad character guys. The attention that Sam will receive will be significant.
He is already a strong young man to be able to come out to his Mizzou teammates. If he is a good enough player, the Dolphins should seriously consider drafting him. Philbin would not be fazed by his presence.

The dolphins are set for defensive ends anyway…but like I said before as long as Michael Sams goes into training camp and plays good football he will fit into any locker room you put him in. Just because he is gay doesn’t mean he is not a good football player and it certainly doesn’t mean he needs to be coddled.

I think, in fact, that the Dolphins would be a great place for him to be, considering everything that has gone on, the team will be very aware of everything that happens.

Or that was the kind of environment before Ross cleaned things up and fired Ireland and hired Hickey? What else is not healthy is when you assume somebody can’t improve or reform or make things right where once they were wrong, despite noticing they have taken obvious and overt steps since. He also goes on to say he isn’t judging Miami or even knows the people or anything really, but he knows enough to make an example out of them.

Maybe high school players should think twice about joining Mizzouri’s team as long as the coach is going to hold their previous baggage over their heads and call them out as examples of locker room problems, not that he’ll judging them when downgrading them.

Besides Miami is a mess because of idiotic GMing, it wasn’t an “incident” problem, when you have a bad GM then all kinds of bad crap can and will happen. Poor intelligence all season long isn’t an incident, it’s more like a logic disease. He’s confusing fallout with source.

It will probably seem like a better fit when the report comes out this week and we find out that Incognito was a a good friend and said lots of things in jest like any other young male would say to a buddy of his, until he realized something was wrong with his friend and showed genuine concern.

You see this, Mr. Ross? Do you see how the Dolphins are viewed by others outside your bubble? In a situation where every coach of every team is tasked with the job of making sure the culture of their locker room is accepting to this player, your team and, more specifically, your coach has been singled out as someone who can’t manage this. And yet it seems as if you never even considered replacing him.

the coach just stated the obvious nothing more nothing less. as the dolphins locker room make up existed last year it would not have been a good fit!!! have they addressed the issues ? even if he comes off miami’s radar there are 31 teams he will get his shot and be allowed to prove that he belongs move on

Not that I like Hickey, but the Fins dodged a bullet on Farmer (and Dawson). And for the record there was no offer- he turned down a second interview. Beyond that, Lombardi and Chud say good luck with the stability over there. And Ross made his money the old fashioned way, he earned it – while it looks like Haslem who may or may not end up in stripes built his in a more questionable manner – so there’s that too. So bottom line: let’s end this revisionist version.

I don’t think Pinkel said anything bad about the dolphins and was more than likely answering a specific question. Dolphin players being verbally destructive to one another is a nice way of putting it. A college coach that cares anything about his players would not want one of his former kids to be subjected to that.